


Escape Artist

by chaineddove



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Backstory, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaineddove/pseuds/chaineddove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [russian_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/gifts).



> So, this was not my assignment. I just have to get that out of the way first - when I finished my actual assignment early and decided to write a treat, I _never_ thought I'd wind up with this monster. But reading the requestor's letter, with all of its fondness for Anders before he got a (rather unfortunate) personality transplant, just got me itching to write this.
> 
> Presenting Anders' seven escape attempts, with varied degrees of success - and let me tell you, coming up with seven ways to escape the tower was not easy. I know you didn't want a heavy focus on the Warden or Hawke, but writing Anders without Solona - when they're close in age and living in the Tower together - just seemed implausible, especially since we know she exists whether or not she becomes the Warden (a mage cousin is mentioned by Bethany regardless). I hope you will accept my apologies - Solona (along with Jowan) will remain instrumental throughout the story. Besides, I rather like the Terrible Trio dynamic, all things considered. Some violent and sexual content in later chapters. See end of chapter for chapter-specific notes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take one: the simple plan.

Anders has been a reluctant guest of Ferelden’s Circle of Magi for less than a year when he accidentally stumbles upon the best idea of his life – or so he likes to think, anyway.

“So,” he says nonchalantly, piling his plate high with whatever grayish mush the kitchens are passing off as stew today, “I think it’s about time we get out of here, don’t you?”

Jowan chokes on his water, and Anders has to thwap him heartily on the back a few times. Across the table, Solona’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates as she stares at him.

“Do you want to get us all sent to wash dishes for the next _year_?” Jowan finally manages once he’s caught his breath.

Anders shrugs and points out, “ _She’s_ not paying attention.” The enchanter set to watch over the apprentices as they eat is staring moodily off into the distance. Anders is fairly sure he could set her hair on fire without her noticing; he thinks briefly of trying it, but discards the idea, as his last experiment with flames ended in the charred ruins of his father’s farm and a one-way trip to the Circle in manacles.

Solona recovers her composure and returns to primly nibbling at the food on her plate; she may be in oversized, secondhand robes rolled over her elbows to keep them out of the gravy, but something of her noble upbringing still lingers. She looks fairly silly, but Anders feels a little sorry for her – she’s only nine, and still crying for her mother every other night – so he doesn’t say anything. “They said we can’t _ever_ go home,” she points out quietly.

“Yes,” Anders says flippantly, “well, I don’t want to go home, particularly.” His father wouldn’t consider that any kind of blessing. “I just don’t want to be here anymore.”

“If it were so easy to run away, everyone would be doing it,” Jowan mumbles under his breath, still sending concerned looks at the disinterested enchanter, who is now twirling a lock of hair around her fingers and making doe eyes at a templar across the hall. Anders grimaces; anything not to be reduced to _that_.

“How _do_ you think you’re going to manage it?” Solona asks after a moment; he can tell that she’s trying not to look too hopeful.

“Well,” Anders says, nearly bursting with pride at his own brilliance, “I was up on the fourth floor the other day, looking for a book-”

“In the _Harrowing Chamber_?” Jowan interrupts. “We’re not supposed to be up there!”

“There are other rooms up there, you know,” Anders says. “And I never said I was _supposed_ to be up there, I just said I _was_.”

“Oh,” says Jowan, as if such a thing would never have crossed his mind – which, to be fair, is probably the case. Jowan isn’t the most creative individual Anders has ever met, though he’s generally game for some fun, once he’s been convinced.

“And lucky for you I think those rules are a bunch of codswallop; you wouldn’t believe what I found! A window,” Anders says, once they’re both looking at him expectantly. “One _without_ bars.” He doesn’t mention just how tiny the window is; the way he figures it, a dislocated shoulder is a small price to pay for freedom. He’s still scrawny, but before long he’s sure he’ll start growing into his hands and feet, by which time it will be too late.

“A window,” Solona says slowly. “On the fourth floor. Over the lake?”

“Well yes, over the lake,” Anders says. “Of course over the lake. The tower is in the middle of a blasted lake.”

“You’re not supposed to say ‘blast,’” Jowan points out.

“I’m not supposed to a lot of things,” Anders says with a laugh. “So, the way I see it, all we have to do is jump.”

“Into the lake?” Solona says, giving him an odd look.

“You’re really fixated on that lake,” Anders says impatiently. “Yes, down we go. It’s the best plan ever – we just swim to freedom.”

“It’s winter,” Jowan says incredulously.

“Well, the lake wasn’t frozen over when I saw it yesterday,” Anders responds. “And anyway, you Fereldans don’t know what winter is. Spend a winter in the Anderfels, then we’ll talk. Your nose near freezes off if you stick it outside.”

“I don’t think your plan sounds very safe,” Jowan says ponderously.

“Fine, don’t come,” Anders retorts.

Solona looks down into her plate. After a moment, she says softly, “And I can’t swim.”

Anders sighs. “Well I didn’t say it was a _perfect_ plan.”

***

In the end, he jumps from the window alone. Only it isn’t so much a jump as a grunting, miserable tumble; he dislocates both shoulders and probably breaks his wrist against the window ledge, then hits the water sideways and drops out of consciousness, sinking like a stone.

***

He wakes up four days later in the lakeside inn, feeling rather appropriately like he fell from a cliff. He’s covered in bandages and weak as a kitten. The innkeeper stands in one corner, looking put-out; a templar stands in the opposite corner, looking thunderous; Senior Enchanter Wynne stands over him, looking exasperated. “Well,” she says, “you’ve had a bit of an adventure, haven’t you?”

“Surprised he came around at all,” the innkeeper says. “I thought he was dead when we pulled him out.”

“You did the right thing, calling us,” Wynne says with a deep sigh.

“I’m still not so sure I should have,” the innkeeper says sourly. “What goes on up there with these children that they go leaping out of windows…”

“Nothing so dire as you are thinking,” Wynne replies, shaking her head. “And there aren’t meant to be any windows for them to go leaping from, to begin with.”

Anders wants to say, _that’s sort of the point,_ , but finds he is unable to do more than croak like a frog.

“Careful what you say there, friend,” the templar speaks up. “You wouldn’t want to be thought a sympathizer.”

“All right, young man,” Wynne says mercilessly, ignoring the templar’s words, but gesturing for him to come and lift Anders into a sitting position. This turns out to be even more painful than lying down, something Anders wasn’t aware was possible until this moment. “I believe you’re safe to be moved now; it will hurt, but that is what you get for your recklessness.” The templar lifts Anders out of the bed; it is a relief of sorts when he loses consciousness again.

***

After he can walk unaided, he is set to scrubbing pots in the kitchen for two months.

“Told you so,” Jowan says one evening, watching him rub ointment onto his hands, which are chapped from hot water and lye soap.

“Oh, shut up,” Anders grouses, trying to wrap a bandage around his hand so as to let the ointment properly soak in.

“I’m glad you’re better,” Solona says, batting his hand away and tying off the end of the bandage in a neat knot. She adds a bow; Anders sighs and lets her do what she likes. “Don’t do that again.”

“You’re right,” Anders says with a decisive nod. “That window really was too small. I need a better plan.”

He ignores Solona’s assertion that this was _not_ what she meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No minor characters were harmed in the making of this chapter, and the only one to appear is the innkeeper of the Spoiled Princess, who I believe never had a name. There aren't any party banter references - excepting perhaps the fact that one of the Templars at the door tells you, in the mage origin story, that the only way out is through a window, but no one sane would ever try it...
> 
> In case you're interested in ages, this timeframe makes Anders 12, Solona 9, and Jowan 10.


	2. Trash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take two: some violence, and the first appearance of Rylock.

“That is a genuinely stupid plan,” Solona says.

“Watch out – she’s using big words, she must be serious,” Jowan says with a chuckle.

“I _am_ serious,” Solona retorts. “Your first plan nearly got you killed, but this one-”

“Won’t,” Anders finishes her sentence. “That’s the beauty of it, you know.”

Solona wrinkles her nose and says, “There’s nothing beautiful about the refuse heap.”

“Especially not the _smell_ ,” Jowan points out.

Anders grins. “That, my friends, is the reek of freedom.”

***

The plan is foolproof. He sneaks into the kitchen in the lull shortly before dinner time and makes for the sacks holding the day’s garbage. Taking a deep breath, he opens one, redistributes some of the contents, and climbs inside. The cloth soaked with perfumed water which he has stretched across his face almost lets him pretend not to notice the smell. Wriggling to get as comfortable as possible, under the circumstances, he settles in to wait.

***

The servant who eventually comes to lug the refuse outside grunts as he swings the sack onto his back. “What’re they tossing away now, dead bodies?” he grumbles. Anders has to hold in a slightly hysterical giggle as he tries to stay as still as he can. 

“Quit your bellyaching and get on with it,” the head cook says. The servant grunts again, adjusts his grip, and lumbers outside.

***

It turns out to be harder than he anticipated to get the smell out of his clothes and hair, especially in the muggy, stifling heat of summer. Eventually, he settles for picking wilted lettuce leaves and bones off of his person and dunking his head in the lake, which is nowhere near as cold as he remembers it. He makes a mental note to write to Jowan once he’s well away from here and tell him that his comments on the appropriate season to escape were really rather helpful. 

He starts to walk, humming a merry tune under his breath. He can’t smell the fresh air over the pervasive stench of garbage rotting in the heat, but he knows it is there. After two years of lamp and firelight, even the full moon makes him squint, and gives more than enough light for him to turn his back on Kinloch Hold and set off confidently in what he hopes is the direction of the nearest town, where he intends to scrub himself pink.

***

The sun has only just crested the horizon when they catch up to him. He makes a good-faith effort to dash off into the trees, but ends up flat on his stomach with his face in the dirt, writhing in the sort of agony he’s never experienced before. When at last he catches his breath and rolls over, he looks up at short and burly templar and a willowy, dark-haired girl in the armor of a templar recruit. “And that’s how it’s done,” the man tells the girl in a conversational tone of voice, grabbing Anders roughly by the shoulder and hauling him to his feet, but keeping him at arm’s length. 

“I see,” says the girl, and claps a pair of manacles on Anders’ wrists as he’s still trying to get his wind back. “It does not appear so difficult.”

The templar laughs heartily and says, “Oh, you’re a sharp one. Let’s see you try it, then.”

The girl looks critically at Anders and says, “He barely seems to be standing of his own accord.”

The templar gives Anders a shove. “He’s hardier than that; he managed to survive a fall from the fourth floor into the lake last winter.”

“A jump,” Anders says weakly.

“What?” the templar says, looking at him for the first time, as though he has forgotten that the mage can speak.

“I didn’t fall,” Anders says, more clearly. “I _jumped_.”

“Always knew mages were crazy,” the templar says, shaking his head. “Never mind, let’s just get him back and be done with it. You’ll practice another time.”

“Stupid phylactery,” Anders mumbles.

“We didn’t use your phylactery,” the girl says mildly. “We just followed the stench.”

***

He gets a whipping, ten lashes. It hurts marginally less than jumping into Lake Calenhad did, but the effects linger longer. Every time his wool robes come into contact with his back, he has to remind himself not to whimper. He’s not supposed to have ointment for it, but of course Solona somehow procures some anyway, and Jowan rubs it on for him after the lights are supposed to be out and apprentices are meant to be abed. Frankly, he wouldn’t put it past Solona to sneak out of the girls’ dormitory and do it herself, but a boy of thirteen has to have some pride, and the last thing he wants is a ten-year-old in pigtails and a ruffled nightdress ministering to his injuries. 

“Don’t say it,” he cautions Jowan. “I got further this time, and I _didn’t_ almost die. That’s progress.” He doesn’t mention the templar’s smite, which certainly made him wish he were dead for a minute or two. He doesn’t intend to be on the receiving end of that again.

“I’m not saying anything,” Jowan whispers, “except that your hair _still_ smells like last week’s mutton, and it tasted off to begin with.”

“Pipe down over there,” a drowsy voice complains from across the room. “Some of us are trying to get some sleep.”

Anders makes shooing motions to get Jowan off his blanket, then surreptitiously sniffs at a lock of his hair, which is getting long enough to be tied back. He decides he’s due for another bath in the morning, and will just have to put up with the burn of soap on his healing back.

He _really_ hates mutton.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Rylock, aka That Female Templar Who Always Chases Anders Around. We see her briefly in Awakenings, when Anders is recruited. Anders also talks about her, with some fondness, in party banter.
> 
> In this chapter, Anders is 13, Solona is 10, Jowan is 11.
> 
> And yes, the shoutout to _Firefly_ was 100% intentional. I just couldn't help it.


	3. Exercise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take three: an unexpected opportunity, with equally unexpected results.

Someone – he'd put his money on Senior Enchanter Wynne, if he had any money to wager – has decided that the summer weather is far too nice to keep the apprentices cooped up indoors, and that same someone has convinced the templars that there is little harm in letting the children get some exercise in the fresh air and sunshine. Granted, there is a small army of angry, armored men arranged in a semi-circle behind them, but even so, Anders has to agree that this is the best idea anyone at the tower has had in a long while – especially when the lake is _right there_.

“Hey,” he whispers to Solona as they bend over to touch their toes, “wouldn’t this be a great time to -”

“ _No_ ,” she hisses forcefully, glaring at him, her face red with exertion. “Have you _seen_ how many templars came out here with us?”

“Templars in _armor_ ,” he points out. “It’s a law of the universe – so much iron is sure to sink.”

It is a split-second decision; by the time they realize what he’s done, he’s paddling for his life. He ignores the angry shouts of the templars and the laughing cheers of the other apprentices, and focuses on putting as much distance as possible between himself and the tower while his heavy, wet robe keeps trying to drag him down into the depths.

***

Sprinting through the fields mostly naked is embarrassing, but he does it. The apprentice robe is an unmistakable mark of the status he wishes to shed, and running about in his smalls is preferable to being caught and hauled back to Kinloch Hold. After a time, he approaches a farmhouse, steals an oversized shirt from a clothesline, pulls it over his sunburned shoulders, and sets off down the nearest road. He continues walking until the sun begins to set; he is sore and exhausted, but determined to continue walking until he can walk no more.

The road winds into the woods, and he follows it blindly, with only the assumption that it will lead somewhere away from here, which is good enough for him. Unfortunately, he is barely out of the twilight and into the shadow of the trees when someone throws a sack over his head. When he tries to struggle, his head meets with some hard and unyielding object; consciousness flees before he has the wherewithal to try magic.

***

The people who have captured him are not templars, which is good. Unfortunately, as he rumbles along in a wagon with them, trussed up like a feastday bird, he comes to learn that they are slavers, which is bad.

“He’s a bit old for the Crows,” the hard-eyed elven woman says as they discuss what to do with him. “Too bad; he’s got a pretty face under the dirt, I think. They like the pretty ones.”

“So do the whorehouses,” the man says.

The woman chuckles and says, “True enough, and he’s just about the age for it, though we’ll have to get him washed up and presentable before we go to market.”

“Hear that, boy?” the man says, giving him a none-too-gentle nudge in the ribs with his boot. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you fetch a nice price before we’re through with you.”

Which, Anders thinks, is distinctly uncomforting – but as he’s gagged, he can’t really comment one way or another. With a melancholy sigh, he wonders how he’s gotten himself into this scrape – out of one form of bondage and straight into another. At least he can hope that his next prison is easier to escape than his last one. And at least he’s had practice.

***

They take the gag off at night, to feed him. The rest of his bonds are loosened, too, and he can sort of use his hands, though not quite well enough to attempt casting anything, as it turns out. Besides, his mouth is far too full of jerky and dry bread to mutter any incantations, and he has yet to learn to cast reliably without them.

The woman sits by his side, watching him as he stuffs his face. She hands him more food when he’s done. “Go on, take it; you’re a bit scrawny.”

“Fattening me up, are you?” he mumbles, but takes the food.

She laughs. “You’ll go on the block one way or another; you might as well make yourself as attractive as possible. The madams vary widely in their treatment of the merchandise.”

“A fair warning,” he says, and licks his fingers free of crumbs.

“You’re taking this rather well,” she says.

“Well, it isn’t necessarily the first time,” he says, with the most nonchalant air he can affect. “And really, it’s sort of like a story I read once. There were some Llomerryn pirates and some Qunari. They got into a bit of a spat off the coast of… oh, some Free Marches city, I guess, nothing to do with either of them. People came out to the port to watch and took bets on who would win, sort of hoping they’d just kill each other and have done with it.” He shrugs.

The woman is watching him, clearly confused. “So,” she says after he’s been silent awhile, “who won the battle?”

“Oh, the Qunari, of course,” Anders tells her. “Not that the people in that port city were happy about it, but _they_ had no say.”

“You are an extremely strange child,” she says. “What in the world does this have to do with your current situation?”

“I’d think it’s obvious,” Anders says morosely. “I’m just waiting for the Qunari to show up.”

Her eyes narrow. “Think you’re funny, do you boy?”

“Sometimes,” Anders tells her, “though not necessarily right this minute.”

His gag is put back in place. “If you think rescue is coming, think again,” she tells him.

He would point out that she’s entirely missed the point of his analogy, but talking is impossible, and besides, they haven’t been very sporting with him, so it doesn’t seem necessary to provide them with more warning than that.

***

The templars come midway through the fourth day. It really isn’t a battle so much as a slaughter – one moment the slavers are shouting and going for their weapons, the next they’re drowning in pools of their own blood. Anders sits in the wagon, still tied hand and foot, not to mention gagged, and watches the carnage. Oddly, though he has no sympathy for the slavers, he feels uncomfortable and sad seeing them fall like puppets whose strings have been cut. 

“Well,” he says, when his gag has been removed, “it certainly took you long enough.”

One of the templars, a red-faced man with incredible sideburns and thinning hair on top of his head stalks over to him and smacks his head hard enough to make it ring. “Have you any _idea_ the trouble you’ve caused?”

“Ouch,” Anders says, by way of answer. “That puts things in perspective.”

“If it were up to me,” the templar says, “I would give you a whipping you wouldn’t soon forget.”

“Hmm,” says Anders, “they were going to sell me to a brothel. I’ll take the whipping and a life of slavery over debauchery and a life of slavery, I suppose, though I can’t say as I see much of a difference between the two.”

The templar seems to have very little to say to that.

***

“So,” Jowan says, leaning against a wall and watching as Anders, who is elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubs a soup kettle, “we’re not allowed outside anymore.” 

“If you’ve so little to do that you feel the need to taunt me, feel free to help anytime,” Anders says.

“Oh no,” Jowan says, “I don’t think so. Solona’s cross with you, you know.”

“I figured as much, when she didn’t come by with her salves and her advice after my most recent whipping. She hasn’t even asked about the slavers yet, and everyone _else_ in the entire Circle has, which is rather funny, since no one was supposed to know.” Anders shrugs, then says with more confidence than he feels, “It’s all right; she’ll forget all about it by next week. Besides, one of the younger boys – Linn, Finn, something of that nature – stopped me just the other day to thank me. Apparently, he didn’t like the bugs. Or the dirt. Or the exercise, particularly.” Jowan shakes his head, and Anders adds, “Yes, I know, a bit of a twit, but he did make me feel better.”

“If you’re going to yammer at him, I can put you to work, and don’t think I won’t,” the cook says, giving Jowan a sideways glare. With a stammer about the time, Jowan escapes the kitchen. Anders shakes his head, but he can’t help laughing a little. Across the kitchen, a scullery maid catches his eye; she’s trying not to laugh, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Witch Hunt, Finn mentions that the apprentices used to get weekly exercise outside until Anders swam across the lake. It took a week to catch him, and outdoor exercise was cancelled - much to Finn's delight. He wasn't much a fan of the great outdoors.
> 
> In thic chapter, Anders is 14, Solona is 11, Jowan is 12.


	4. Disguise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take four: crossdressing, further violence, and very mild sexual content.

“ _What_ are you doing?”

Ignoring Solona, Anders continues turning in front of the looking glass, examining his reflection critically. A little padding there, and… “I think it might fit.”

“You think _what_ might fit, Keili’s new robes? Those are for a _girl_. And Keili is… she has… well, the top is just too… too big on you!” Solona finally finishes, her face scarlet as a beet.

“That’s what the padding’s for,” Anders explains patiently. “And anyway,” he adds, making one last turn in front of the mirror, “I’m not going to wear Keili’s robes. She’s just about the right size, that’s all.” He gives himself one last critical look, decides he looks rather fetching, then pulls the robes over his head; Solona squawks and covers her eyes, but he doesn’t understand _why_ , considering the woolen smalls they all wear in the winter cover almost as much as the robes do. His own robes are still pooled on the floor of the girls’ dormitory; he picks them up and tugs them on, then says, “You can look now.”

He tosses Keili’s robes onto her bed; Solona huffs, snatches them up, and heads for the wardrobe. “At least pick up after yourself if you’re stealing other people’s clothes,” she admonishes.

“ _She’s_ the one who needs to pick up after herself – I’m just putting them back where I found them,” Anders replies.

“It doesn’t matter,” Solona says with conviction. She hangs up the robes, then turns around, hands on hips, trying to emulate one of the senior enchanters despite her diminutive size. “So, just what is Keili the right size for?”

He gives her a conspiratorial grin and a wink, then says, “I have come up with the _best_ plan.”

“Oh no,” Solona sighs.

“Oh _yes_ ,” Anders corrects. “Just wait until you hear it.”

***

On the cusp of sixteen, Anders is still slim and not terribly tall; some of the templars call him “pretty,” with either a derisive curl of the lip or a frankly terrifying avarice in their eyes when he gets in their way – but the gangly, bucktoothed scullery maid seems to like him just fine with his pretty face and long, glossy blond hair. When he sneaks into her little nook off the kitchen, it is not only because he has an escape to orchestrate, but also to find out what all the fuss is about, and maybe also because he isn’t a fool; he knows exactly what those avaricious looks from the templars mean, he’s heard the horror stories, and he’d really rather make this decision himself. 

As it turns out, her teeth really aren’t so bad in the dark, and whatever she lacks, she makes up for with enthusiasm. There’s some fumbling, and it doesn’t last nearly as long as the books he’s not supposed to be reading claim, but he considers the experience mutually satisfactory in the end; when she’s asleep, he gently extricates himself from her grasp and crawls out of her pallet, then looks down at her silhouette with a surprising surge of fondness. He doesn’t suppose he’ll see her again, but it can’t be helped; he only hopes that when she wakes up and discovers her dress missing, she won’t be in _too_ much trouble.

***

With his head down and the maid’s cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders, he stands on the ferry dock at dawn, a basket of food over his arm. “Early, isn’t it?” the ferryman asks. 

“Off to see my mum, Kester,” he says in his best imitation of the girl’s voice; he’s spent enough time talking to her to know just what to say. “I’m to be back before dinner, else they’ll beat me for shirking my duties, so I had best be on my way now.”

In the half darkness, his fair hair and smooth face pass muster; the ferryman helps him aboard, saying only, “She’s ailing yet, is she? Poor thing; well, I shan’t hold you up. Let’s get a move on, then.”

Anders sits at the darkest edge of the bench and feels the ferry rocking under him as the ferryman pushes off. The cold, crisp scent of winter is dizzying after so much time away; he remembers enough of his childhood to think it may snow before long. He spends the ride considering the best way to cover his tracks if the weather should not cooperate.

On the other side of the lake, he thanks the ferryman and scampers into the woods, his heart pounding loudly in his ears, glad for once that years of robes have made running in skirts nearly easy.

***

He gets lost, and the food in his basket runs out on the third day. It snows, long and hard, and he’s barely managed to keep himself warm by crawling into a hollow between the roots of a giant oak. When they come for him, he’s shivering too hard to try running for it, which does at least save him from the indignity of another smite.

The templar apprentice girl seems to have taken her vows since his last escape; she gives him an incredulous look from under the visor of her helmet as her superior stands back, holding a glowing phial – his phylactery – and scowling. “Really?” she says, taking in his snow-covered skirt and patched cloak. “This is the best you can do?”

“It’s a work in progress,” he manages through the chattering of his teeth. He lets her pull him to his feet and manacle his hands behind his back. She doesn’t bother brushing the snow off of his hair, but she doesn’t needlessly hurt him, either. All in all, it’s an improvement.

“Don’t tarry, Rylock,” the older templar says. “I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

“It’s all right,” Anders says. The templar is one of those who have given him the frighteningly intimate looks, and somehow, this makes the whole thing that much worse. “You’re not supposed to be using them, anyway.” The man gives Anders a scathing look that promises retribution, and Anders acknowledges that he’ll probably pay for the quip later, in spades.

“Come on,” the young woman says, with no little disgust; with a sigh, he stumbles deliriously after her.

***

This time, it’s twenty lashes, delivered by the same templar who came to fetch him. Anders is almost glad that tears blur his eyes the moment the first one falls; he doesn’t want to see the templar’s burning, hungry eyes as he jerks against his bindings. He cannot stop the man from enjoying his task, but he does try to cry out as quietly as possible, the only rebellion allowed to him. It is difficult to do; the man is nearly as big around as he is tall, and he does not have a light hand. 

After he has been beaten, he is carried to the basement and tossed into a dark, cramped cell, where he remains for a week. Without Solona’s contraband ointment, the lashes on his back become infected, and he is delirious with fever by the time they come to collect him. He doesn’t remember much of it, fortunately – irritated voices, some sort of liquid forced between his lips, then the blessedly cool wash of healing purging the burning pain from his skin, and finally darkness.

When he wakes, he is in his own bed, and one of the Tower cats is curled up on his stomach. The cat raises his head and gives Anders an inscrutable look. “Thanks,” Anders says, just in case; the cat makes a noise between a purr and a meow and goes back to sleep.

***

He is back in class the following day, very aware of the fact that every apprentice in the room is shooting him surreptitious glances. He ignores them and concentrates on the fire spell he is meant to be practicing. He imagines the target to be a templar’s head; his casts are remarkably successful. 

“That girl was thrown out,” Jowan mutters to him as the enchanter at the head of the class lectures about elemental theory. “Without a stitch to cover her, I heard.”

Anders feels a prickle of shame; in his attempts to free himself, he has never before harmed another person. “So next time, I don’t involve anyone else,” he says. The memory of pain is sharp, and he has seen his back in the mirror; the scars from this beating will never fade. Most likely, they were allowed to remain so as to give him pause, but they only strengthen his determination. “It took them three days to find me; I just need to run faster.”

Jowan sighs morosely and says, “I wish you were kidding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keili is the mage you meet in the chapel of the mage origin - trying to "pray the mana away." You'll see her referenced again in this fic - including a brief explanation of the origin of her self-loathing and mildly hysterical attitude. The scullery maid is an NPC and will not make a reappearance. Anders mentions in DA2 that some of the templars were abusive to the mages, sometimes sexually, and I think Anders is the type to make his own poor choices preemptively, for fear of having them taken out of his hands entirely. Kester is, of course, the very chatty ferryman, and the cat is Mister Wiggums.
> 
> In this chapter, Anders is about to turn 16, Solona is 13, Jowan is 14.


	5. Tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take five: a halfhearted escape attempt at best, brought on by heavy conversation.

“I read something interesting the other day,” Anders says, “about a mage who ran away to Orzammar.”

“Orzammar?” Solona says curiously. They are in one of the basement storerooms, searching the poorly-organized rubble for a scroll that Enchanter Varden swears he put down here, ten or fifteen years ago. When Anders raised his hand to volunteer – something Anders _never_ does, as a rule – Solona’s hand shot up instants later, and Jowan’s followed shortly after. Anders supposes they are aiming to keep him out of trouble, but it has worked to his favor, as they are now alone, away from prying ears, and he can share his ruminations with them.

“Yes, Orzammar,” Anders says. “Apparently, the dwarves don’t take kindly to the Chantry generally, not that I blame them. And it seems phylacteries are considerably less effective as a tracking mechanism if the mage is underground.”

“Here we go again,” Jowan mutters.

“So… what, you run from the Tower into the Deep Roads?” Solona queries. “Is that your new plan? The Deep Roads are not meant to be particularly scenic.”

“The older you get,” Anders says, “the more sarcastic. What happened to that sweet little girl we knew?”

“She found some common sense,” Solona says crossly. “Enough for her and a few others, who seem to have misplaced theirs.”

“Well _that_ stings,” Jowan complains.

“I’m sure she mostly means me,” Anders says, plopping down on the floor and leaning his back against a curio cabinet.

“Getting you lot out of scrapes quickly becomes tiresome,” Solona parries, “even if your scrapes mostly involve forgotten homework, Jowan.” She moves a stack of books out of her way, then goes deeper into the storeroom in search of the elusive scroll.

“I haven’t been in any major trouble for at _least_ a couple of years,” Anders disagrees. He tosses a couple of balls of light into the air and begins to juggle them.

“Are you on a schedule now?” Jowan asks.

“No,” Anders replies. “Not really.”

“You know,” Solona says from somewhere behind two shelves and a crate, “it really isn’t so bad here.”

It is so unexpected that Anders feels she has punched him in the stomach. The lights he has been juggling wink out, his concentration broken. “You can’t mean that!”

“Can’t I?” She comes back into view, dusty and triumphant, holding the scroll in her hand. “Of course I miss my mother, and the sunshine, and I can’t even remember what flowers smell like anymore, and I _want_ to go outside, but the lessons are interesting, and the enchanters are kind, and the templars-”

“Like preying on defenseless children,” Anders interrupts, incensed.

Solona places her hands on her hips and glares up at him. “They’ve never beaten _me_.”

“Just wait another year or two,” Anders says ominously. “Just _wait_. You’re a little scrawny now, but they’ll come sniffing around soon enough, and then you’ll wish you had listened to me. What they’ll do to you _then_ will make you _wish_ they’d just beaten you.”

“Anders…” Jowan attempts, but Anders ignores the warning.

“Do you know what happens to pretty little mage girls who keep their heads down?” he says viciously instead. “I could tell you, but why bother when you’d rather find out for yourself? You don’t think it strange that some of the older girls walk everywhere in packs and sleep with a candle burning? Maker take you, you’ve _heard_ Keili weeping in bed; why do you think she’s crying now when she never has before? It isn’t because she misses her blasted mother!”

Solona’s face is bone-white as she looks up at him, lips parted as though she is trying to speak and failing.

“You’ll know I’m right then, you silly girl, but it will be too late to do anything about it,” he continued, advancing on her. “So you go right on ahead and scamper back to Enchanter Varden with your blasted scroll, as if that will change anything.”

“Anders, _stop_ ,” Jowan implores, but it is too late now, of course.

Solona’s white cheeks flood with brilliant color and her eyes glimmer with unshed tears. “I _hate_ you!” she proclaims, then turns in a flurry of robes and runs out of the room.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” Jowan ventures after a few moments of charged silence.

“Well, every bit of it is true, and I did,” Anders replies brusquely. “We will all just have to live with it.”

***

Solona doesn’t speak to him for the next week, and both of them try to pretend they don’t care. Jowan hovers between them, unhappy and uncertain, as they quietly and intently go about their business. Solona disappears into the girls’ dormitory the moment lessons end each day, and Anders sits and stews and hates himself, and her, but most especially the Circle and the templars. 

He does not think it through, simply descends the stairs to the basement, then heads down the long hallway, past the abandoned storerooms full of broken things. He’s never explored this area fully, but Kinloch Hold is old, and old places often have ways in and out which are not commonly known; if there are any passages in the Tower, they will be here.

Unfortunately, the builders of the tower seem not to have consulted the authors of the adventure novels Anders loves to read; although the network of hallways is quite extensive and certain rooms have clearly not been used in years, if not decades, the search for a secret passage proves fruitless. Anders spends the majority of the afternoon knocking on walls and pulling things off of shelves, just in case they may trigger a trapdoor. By dinnertime, he has to admit that if a passage is here, he’s unlikely to find it with his limited skills. His stomach growls, but he ignores it. It’s a long walk back to the stairs, and anyway, they’ll have realized he’s gone by now, so he might as well make the best of this opportunity. The network of storage rooms is underground, after all, and an experiment seems in order – just in case he does manage to make it out and to Orzammar, next time.

***

By sneaking upstairs and into the kitchen in the dead of night, Anders manages to provision himself well enough that he lasts a full week of playing hide and seek in the basement. He’s getting very good at hearing the tempars coming and finding ways to get behind them, and he thinks he could probably navigate this place in his sleep by the time he carelessly turns a corner and barrels into Rylock, which sends him sprawling onto the floor. She glares down at him, and he smiles weakly. “Fancy meeting you here.” 

If looks could kill, Anders thinks this would probably be his last escape attempt. “You think this is funny, do you, mage?” Rylock asks.

He smiles as disarmingly as he can and says, “Well, no. It’s a little unfortunate, really. But I’d rather see you than one of the others; I really think you are my very favorite templar. Tell me, did you volunteer for this assignment?”

“Get up,” she says, still glaring. “Turn around. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

As she marches him down the hallway, he muses, “I never realized how many secret passages this old place has. Amazing, really.”

“There are no secret passages,” she growls.

“No?” Anders asks. “If there aren’t, that must mean you’ve been looking for me in the same basement for seven days – and how likely would that be? Honestly, if I hadn’t gotten hungry and come back, you probably wouldn’t have found me at all.”

“Stop talking; keep walking.”

***

He doesn’t get whipped this time, perhaps because despite his posturing it’s fairly obvious that he’s been in the Tower the entire time, or perhaps because Rylock, despite her growling, has taken some sort of shine to him. He gets another week of solitary confinement, but at least he’s not sick this time, so all in all, it’s really not so bad. 

On his third night in the cell, there’s a soft scratching at the door. “Is that you, Mister Wiggums?” Anders asks quietly; the cat comes to visit him, now and again, though he still cannot figure out how the clever beast gets in and out of the room. “I’m afraid you’ll have to let yourself in.”

“Hardly,” comes a whisper from the other side of the door. For a moment, Anders distinctly feels his heart jump into his throat.

“Solona?” he asks, uncertain.

After a moment of silence, the whisper comes again: “Yes. I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Never better,” he assures her. Then, with a chuckle, he admits, “Well, all right, that’s a lie, isn’t it?”

She giggles; the knot around his heart eases. “I didn’t think you were speaking to me.”

“I wasn’t.” Another pause, then, “We really thought you had done it this time.”

“Afraid not,” Anders replies. “Better luck next time, I suppose.” He pulls his knees up and rests his chin on them, wishing he could see her – or anything, really. It’s pitch black. “How did you get down here, anyway?”

“I stole the key,” she says.

“ _You?_ ” he asks in feigned horror. “Never! Perish the thought.”

“Oh, shut up,” she grumbles. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dying again. Even if I _am_ mad at you, I don’t really hate you.”

He feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I know,” she says quickly. “I’m sorry, too. I should never have made light of it, and when I thought you were really gone, for real this time, I…” She sniffles.

“Don’t cry,” he tells her.

“I missed you,” she says. “That’s all. And if that makes me a silly little girl, or… or-”

“Hush,” he tells her. “You’re fine. It will be all right, I promise.”

“Says the boy under lock and key,” she replies with a watery giggle.

“I’ll be out of here soon enough,” he reassures her. “Just wait a few more days.”

“I could get the key to let you out,” she says hesitantly after a moment. “I know where Knight Commander Greagoir keeps it, and he sleeps like a log.”

“Not worth it,” he quickly assures her. “Go on, put the key back and get to bed before you get in trouble.”

“You don’t care about getting in trouble,” she points out.

“No,” he agrees, “but _you_ do. Go on.”

“All right,” she says. Then, “I’m glad we talked.”

“Me, too.”

There is a quiet shuffle of slippered feet outside the door, then silence as he is once again left alone. He curls up on the stone floor, resting his head on his arm, and falls asleep smiling.

***

The unexpected legacy of his fifth escape attempt is the fact that he keeps coming upon templars who are knocking on walls, clearly searching for something. Whenever he catches one in the act, he or she stops and glares at him as though this is all his fault – which, to be fair, it is. 

“I’m fairly sure it’s worth a week of solitary just to watch them make fools of themselves,” he says smugly.

Jowan laughs and says, “For once, I think you’re right.”

Solona rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, it's Mister Wiggums again! No new cameos otherwise, but definitely a party banter reference - Anders mentions once that he convinced the templars that Kinloch Hold was full of secret passages, leaving them knocking on walls for weeks after the fact, looking for escape routes. This is my take on that bit of trivia. For the record, I'm sure phylacteries work just fine underground - I credit sneakiness and tenacity with Anders staying out of the way for so long. Also, I'm sure the basement is much bigger than what we saw in the spider hunt.
> 
> In this chapter, Anders is 18, Solona is 15, Jowan is 16.


	6. Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take six: an upgraded disguise, a taste of freedom, a harrowing experience, and the beginning of the end.

“That nasty Cullen fellow has been making eyes at you,” Anders tells Solona as they are walking back from dinner one spring afternoon; she colors prettily and swats his shoulder.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she tells him. “There’s no reason for him to be looking at me. He’s twenty-five if he’s a day.”

“And that is precisely why I call him the _nasty_ Cullen fellow,” Anders retorts.

“And anyhow, there isn’t much to look at,” Solona adds hastily, but she touches her hand to her hair in a way that Anders has learned means she is feeling self-conscious, and maybe a little flattered. She has remained slight of frame, but has begun developing curves, which fact seems alternately to excite and frighten her; looking down at her from the new height granted by the growth spurt which has at last deigned to come, Anders gives her a look that clearly says he is unconvinced. “Besides,” Solona continues, “he doesn’t seem as if he would hurt a fly, let alone me.”

“And how would you know?” he asks. The younger templars aren’t exactly encouraged to mix with their magical counterparts.

Solona says, “I dropped some books outside the library the other day; he stopped and helped me pick them up.” She throws up her hands at the thunderous look on his face. “Don’t glare at me so; what was I supposed to do, ask him to please mind his own business? He was only trying to help!”

“That’s how it starts,” Anders says darkly, though no templar has ever attempted to offer him assistance.

“Oh, let’s not fight about this,” she says crossly. “Come now, I’d like your help with that electricity spell before bed; I’ve nearly got it, I think.”

Still mindful of the argument that nearly destroyed their friendship two years before, he doesn’t prod, but as he follows her up the stairs, he resolves to watch the templar closely, since she doesn’t seem to know what’s good for her.

***

In the process of watching Cullen, Anders discovers a number of things. First, it is in fact possible for a templar to blush – as incongruous as it seems – even if the experience seems to cause the young man a great deal of pain, a fact which Anders finds frankly hilarious. Second, the templar follows an extremely regimented schedule, even more so than the majority of his comrades in arms; one could set a clock by his comings and goings, if one were so inclined. Third, the templar and Anders are almost exactly of a height, which is really rather surprising after so many years of looking up at templars in general, barring perhaps Rylock. 

It is this third fact that gives him his newest and best idea yet. Most brilliant of all, not only does he not mind getting a templar in trouble, but considering the man’s almost fanatical obsession with his schedule, it is the easiest thing in the world to steal his armor after it’s been given its nightly polishing and left on the rack.

The immense weight of the armor initially gives him pause, but he manages to get into it with sheer determination, even if he is sweating like a pig as he goes awkwardly clunking down the hall and towards the door.

***

He sheds the armor in some bushes as soon as he is out of sight of the tower, changing into an unassuming pair of trews and a tunic which is several sizes too large. He belts it tightly around his waist, then hails the first wagon passing on the nearby road and swaps the traveling merchant an enchanted amulet for passage in any direction. 

He does this three or four times, trading small treasures for a few more miles between him and the tower. He doesn’t actually care which way he travels – having no access to his phylactery, his only choice is to run as far as possible and hope that the templars eventually give up chase. This time, his pockets are full of items which he has squirreled away, like a magpie, over the years; he cannot say exactly how much money they will yield, but he assumes they’ll last him a few months, at least. Once they’re gone, he supposes he will have to remember how to work for a living, but the thought isn’t entirely distressing; he may have been twelve the last time he milked a cow, but surely such things come back with practice.

He spends the first several nights outdoors, under the stars, giving thanks for the uncommonly mild spring weather and the bright moon. He dozes, listening for sounds of pursuit, but they do not come. He does not cease his vigil, sleeping as little as possible, running as fast as his legs will take him. Despite the many stairs he has had to climb at Kinloch Hold, he has to acknowledge that the sedentary lifestyle of a mage has not done him any favors; he is frequently tired and nearly always hungry. He keeps going out of determination, belting his clothing a little tighter every day. He steals a blanket from a clothesline and a new pair of boots when his begin feeling thin in the soles. As he runs, the buds on the trees begin to unfurl, the flowers begin to bloom, and the world comes to life around him, full of fragrance and birdsong and wonder.

On the ninth day, he comes to a village just in time for the first of the spring festivals, celebrating the first sowing of the seeds and the departure of winter. Unable to resist, he lingers to watch the village girls dance and eats currant buns fresh out of the oven. The villagers welcome him gladly, just another transient stranger with coin to spend on food and ale. The girls make eyes at him and the young men slap him heartily on the back when his first swig of ale has him coughing and retching. Despite the truly unfortunate flavor, he chokes the ale down, and dances with the girls, and laughs with the young men, and feels, for that one evening, like he might be beginning to understand what it is like to live freely. The feeling is nearly as heady as the ale.

The sun sets. A dark-haired girl pulls him to his feet and whirls with him around the bonfire, laughing brightly. In the firelight, with the ale clouding his mind, she looks almost – but not quite – like Solona. There is a roar of male laughter as he stumbles over his own feet; the sound has him casting his gaze around for Jowan, but of course, he is not here either.

He thinks of writing them a letter, but does not know what he’d say. _I’m sorry I didn’t say good-bye. Maybe I didn’t really think I’d manage to do it, or maybe I’m just no good at good-byes, but I will never forget you._ Surely it is the ale and the spinning which bring tears to his eyes; he blinks them back and focuses instead on smiling at the young woman he is dancing with. “You seemed far away,” she tells him.

“How could I wish to be anywhere but here?” he says with his best attempt at gallantry. Judging by the way she laughs and tosses her hair, it is effective.

“Don’t you have a girl waiting for you at home, stranger?” she asks, with a sly look from under her lashes.

He thinks of the only girl who would ever think to wait; she will be hoping, for his sake, that he never returns. “No,” he tells the young woman. “No girl, and no home to return to. It’s only the road for me.”

“How _romantic_ ,” she sighs, pulling him closer. “I’ve hardly ever been to the next village over. But don’t you become lonely?”

He knows an invitation when he hears one, so he smiles ruefully and elects to play her game. “Oh,” he says, “yes. Terribly lonely.”

She giggles, low and intimate, and presses herself against him. “Such a pity.”

“I’m not feeling lonely now,” he tells her, with a suggestive quirk of his eyebrow; that seems to be exactly the right thing to say, for she takes him by the hand and tugs him out of the circle of firelight and into the darkness.

***

There are other villages and other girls as spring marches towards summer. He crisscrosses the countryside, never much caring which way he goes as long as it is not the same direction as the day before. The day he comes to his first large town, it is a shock to count backward and realize he has been evading capture for exactly one month. 

In celebration, he buys the nicest room at the nicest inn in town, then orders the nicest bottle of sweet wine in the inn’s cellar, and proceeds to toast himself and anyone else who comes near, flirting shamelessly with the serving girls and singing along, off-key, with the minstrel in the corner.

There is a girl – there is nearly always a girl – with hair like spun gold and eyes like a misty morning; she is not particularly interested, but he is particularly determined, not to mention rather drunk. He takes the stage from the minstrel and warbles out a love song. He badly mangles an attempted recitation of bad poetry. Finally, he makes silver lights dance across the ceiling, spell wisps winking in and out of existence like stars. The girl sees him _then_ , right enough, but before he can sidle up to her and close the deal, three templars march into the inn and clap him in irons.

***

Rylock comes to collect him from the town’s chantry two days later. He has finally recovered from his rather impressive hangover, though the force of fury in her gaze makes him wish for another drink to dull his perception. She doesn’t say a word as she drags him to his feet, thoroughly checks the manacles keeping his hands bound behind his back – as if he could pick a lock, honestly – and shoves him in front of her into the brilliant light of mid-afternoon. 

“I almost missed you,” he says, once he’s done squinting and stumbling; everyone in the town square is staring at them as she sets course for the nearest city gate. He doesn’t see the girl from the inn and feels sheepishly glad of that fact; with sobriety has come the realization that he made an utter ass of himself. There will be other towns in his future, and other girls, he’s certain – provided the Knight Commander doesn’t have him killed – but he’s not likely to make such a foolish error again. “Well,” he says with a sigh, when it is clear that Rylock is not willing to indulge him in conversation, “I can’t say I missed the manacles; rough play never has been much my style. But I missed your glowering, in any case; you’re quite pretty when you’re angry, but then, I’m sure you’ve been told this before.”

His needling works; she stares at him, looking quite appalled, and finally says, “You’re really every bit as mad as they say, mage.”

“Ah,” he says, “but my mission is complete; you are talking to me. Besides, your fellows robbed me of my fun, though you’re more than acceptable as a substitute; that girl was silly and wouldn’t have looked nearly as nice in heavy armor, I’m sure.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she says through gritted teeth.

“I’d rather nowhere than the Circle,” he says with a world-weary sigh. “I don’t suppose you’d consider running away with me? I hear the Deep Roads are just lovely this time of year. I’m good company, I promise.”

He gets a cuff to the head with one gauntleted hand for his trouble.

***

He gets twenty lashes, again, and somehow it isn’t any less painful for being a familiar punishment. This time, the Knight Commander himself takes up the task, and if anything, he hits harder than anyone else has thus far. Anders feels his vision graying somewhere around the middle; when he comes to again, there is an argument going on behind him. He cannot possibly crane his neck around to see – moving is unfathomable – but he doesn’t need to see to know who is fighting. 

“He is young, yes, and a great fool,” comes Irving’s creaky, gentle voice. “But he is not a danger to anyone, Greagoir.”

“I could not disagree with you more,” the Knight Commander rumbles. “He is reckless and foolish, but not, I think, stupid; if he is not yet a danger to himself and all around him, it is only a matter of time before he crosses the line to -”

“We cannot preemptively punish someone because you believe he _may_ have an inclination to one day try blood magic,” Irving says firmly. “You have been through his things; you have interrogated his friends and his teachers; there is no sign of anything more sinister than a rebellious boy who has convinced himself that he is oppressed.”

Anders would laugh, if he could move; from where he’s standing, tied to a post, bleeding, it does not take much convincing.

“If he were made Tranquil -”

“No, Greagoir,” Irving says with finality. “I will not agree to this.”

The Knight Commander sighs deeply, then says, “Well, there is one surefire way to prove to you I am not jumping at shadows. Get your people prepared; I’m taking him upstairs.” There are rough hands yanking at his bonds; before he is allowed to crumple to the floor, he is caught and lifted into the templar’s arms.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Greagoir,” Irving says, exasperated. “He’s barely conscious, not to mention bleeding.”

“He earned his injuries,” Greagoir says dispassionately. “I will not budge on this, Irving; he goes now, or never; the choice is yours.”

“At least allow me to -”

“No.” The templar shifts, jostling Anders against his chest; Anders barely bites back a groan, sensing even through the haze of pain that his fate is being decided, knowing that these men will not be so frank if they realize he is actively listening to their conversation. The Knight Commander continues: “He does not require healing for this, and has not earned your mercy, or anyone’s.”

“Then you damn him as surely as if you had killed him outright,” Irving says mournfully.

“He will have his fair chance, same as any mage,” Greagoir responds coolly. “What he does with it will prove one of us a fool. It is more than he deserves at this point, but for your sake, Irving, he will have it.”

It is not until he is set on his feet in the middle of the Harrowing Chamber that Anders realizes what is happening. He is forced to stand unaided, though every muscle screams in protest. They have not offered him a robe, so he stands bare to the waist, bleeding and lightheaded. He is surrounded by sorrowful mages and hard-eyed templars; Cullen and Rylock stand shoulder to shoulder, and it’s a toss-up which of them looks angrier. It would be funny, he supposes, if he weren’t in such incredible pain and feeling as though he might throw up everything he’s eaten in the last month.

He falls into the lyrium, or maybe it rises up to meet him, and the world is blanketed by glowing, white fog.

***

There is no pain in the Fade, and no nausea, only a vague feeling of disorientation: the colors are strangely muted, and the shapes of things not quite right. He feels a little as though he is being watched, but all around is preternatural silence and stillness. 

When the demon comes out of the fog, he knows her for what she is; she wears the form of a young woman, clothed in a clinging, sheer gown, and her face shifts – from the girl at the tavern to the girl at the festival dance to Rylock to Solona and back again. She is smiling as she approaches him, and her touch, when she reaches out to brush her hand tenderly against his cheek, is warm and feels far more real than anything else in this dream realm. “Poor boy,” she speaks, her voice a thrill in his blood, sweet as honey, soft as a feather, warm as sunlight. “They have abused you so dreadfully.”

“It’s nice to know someone agrees with me,” he responds, “though I hope you don’t take it personally when I say it’s a bit sad that it’s just you.”

She laughs, a tinkle of bells, a shiver against his skin. “Oh, I am more valuable an ally than you know, dear one. And it isn’t so very much that you want, is it? Let’s see… a pretty girl,” she smiles at him with Solona’s face, “a decent meal,” she trails her hand down his still-bare chest, tracing the bumps of his ribs, “and... the right to shoot lightning at fools.” She circles his navel with her finger; the touch thrills and tickles. “Hardly the work of a minute, for one such as I.”

“Not a bad trick,” he admits. “The mind reading must come in handy.”

She laughs again. “It is not such a difficult trick to learn, pet. It will be the first I teach you, if you like, when we are free. Think of it – a whole world, full of freedoms and pleasures you’ve only dreamed of.”

He considers her offer for a few minutes, turning the image of such a world over in his mind, trying it on for size. It is a heady thought to consider having it all, everything under the sun that he’s ever dreamed of possessing. Except, of course, that she is a demon; he will be the one possessed, in the end. And while his life is likely forfeit in any case, he can’t fathom that his final act should be proving the templars right.

“Perhaps they should have chosen Pride,” he muses, “not Desire.” Her smile flickers, her features momentarily alien and unfamiliar. “You’re lovely and all,” he continues, “and I’m sure we’d have a lark before you ate my soul for supper, but if I agree, I’m afraid that a great many people will go around being insufferable and saying ‘I told you so,’ and then we’d have to kill them, and, well, unfortunately I’m just not cut out for killing people, even when they deserve it.”

Her smile is brittle and feral as she tells him, “But I am.”

“Yes,” he says, “and I’d wish you all the best of luck with that, but then we’d both be lying, and one liar is enough, don’t you think?”

Slowly, the familiarity of her face and form bleed away; he is left facing a beautiful but inhuman form with glowing skin and cold eyes. “You will regret this,” she tells him.

“Oh,” he says, “undoubtedly. But the look on that nasty Cullen fellow’s face when I come out of this should take some of the sting off. Sorry, but my answer is no.”

The glowing fog descends to claim him.

***

As it turns out, he doesn’t get to see the look on Cullen’s face, or anything else; by the time he awakens, he is in the hatefully familiar cell in the tower basement, and though he is not alone, Senior Enchanter Wynne is not the first person he expects to see, though at least she is holding a tray, and he can hope that it contains food. He aches all over but, as he sits up, the pain is no longer overwhelming. 

“I disapprove of leaving apprentices to die of infection nearly as much as I disapprove of your shenanigans,” she tells him; he thinks then that it might have been her voice he heard, arguing, the last time he was very sick from a combination of the strap and the dirty, dank cell.

“I failed, then?” he says morosely.

“If you had failed, boy, you’d be dead,” she says in a tone that books no nonsense. “As you’re quite alive, it seems congratulations are in order. No one thinks you are ready, but here we are; sometimes the Maker works in mysterious ways.” She sets the tray down; it holds half a loaf of bread and a cup of water, which makes Anders’ stomach give a loud growl.

Anders snorts and says, “I don’t think the hand of the Maker had anything to do with the Knight Commander’s desire to feed me to a demon.” She does not dignify the statement with a response. He tears off a hunk of bread and begins to chew; it is a bit stale but still delicious. “So, why are you here?”

“To inform you of your punishment,” she says, “and to offer some sorely-needed advice. And while I’m sure you’d skip both if you could, the matter is not up to you.”

He sighs and leans against the wall, wincing only a little; she has not fully healed his injuries, but they feel worlds better than they did. “Well,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm, “in _that_ case.”

“One year in solitary confinement,” she says, “to think about your actions. Hope springs eternal that it is not the punishment that is not working, but rather the duration that is insufficient.”

“Zero points for creativity,” Anders says dryly. She ignores this, too.

“As for the advice,” she says, “here it is: you are luckier than you know to be alive and in possession of all your faculties. There are a number of people -”

“Templars,” he interrupts.

She gives him an exasperated look and says, “No, not only templars – that believe as Greagoir does: that you should be made Tranquil and have done with it.”

“You’re one of their number, of course,” he says.

She shakes her head, and her expression is almost gentle when she replies, “No, I am one of your few defenders. But Greagoir is right – you are not stupid, and you have a gift. My advice is simply this: if you can learn to use that gift to serve others instead of tearing about, causing trouble, you will be a great deal happier.”

“Ah,” he says, “corny sentiment couched in the Chant of Light, paraphrased.”

“I’ve said my piece,” she says, then turns and exits the room, locking the door behind her.

He tries to lie down without braining himself against the wall, and feels something unexpected under his hand – some sort of book. It takes several minutes of intense concentration to summon a small spell wisp, but after a few moments it comes, bringing with it a soft glow – this is one of the spells he has perfected in the last few years, in preparation for just such an occasion. Maybe it’s sad that he applies himself to his studies with a thought to the next time that he will be incarcerated, but in this case, it appears to have paid off. He picks up the book and turns it over; in curly, archaic script, the cover proclaims: _The Spirit of Health: A Complete Guide to the Healing Arts_. It is a very thick book.

He is sure she intended only to give him the least destructive magic she could think of while simultaneously encouraging a life of service, but all he can think of is the convenience of healing his own injuries the next time he is tossed down here. He opens to book to find it filled with notes in various hands and a number of dried herbs and flowers folded carefully between the pages. It is not the sort of book one would give to an apprentice, but then, he supposes, he is not an apprentice any longer.

“Well,” he says aloud to the oppressive silence, “I have nothing better to do.” He turns to the first page and begins to read.

***

When at last they come to let him out, he has read the book from cover to cover a dozen times. His muscles protest the exercise, having atrophied somewhat despite his best applications of the spells he has recently mastered, and he finds himself leaning on the First Enchanter; Irving may be an old man, but Anders will be damned before he leans on a templar for support. Perhaps Irving understands, for he takes the extra weight and says nothing. 

They bring him directly to his new quarters and deposit him on the bed. He lies there, feeling weak and disoriented, for at least a quarter of an hour before an unfamiliar man ducks his long-nosed face into the room and says, “Well, hello there, neighbor. I’m Godwin; of course I know who you are, and I never imagined _you_ were still about; I thought surely you’d gotten away at last during all that fuss last month.”

It is from his new neighbor that Anders discovers that Solona and Jowan are gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really excited to write Anders' Harrowing, because I had been stuck with the idea for ages that he was Harrowed right after one of his escape attempts, by templars who were determined to prove his evil. The fact that he said no to a desire demon out of pride tickles me pink. This is also my take on one of the reasons someone as brash as Anders would choose to specialize in healing.
> 
> I also thought it was about time to bring in Cullen, with his slightly unhealthy obsession with Solona, and Godwin (you know, the mage in the closet?), who will be insrumental to our finale. In this chapter, Anders is 20, Solona is 17 (thus the "slightly unhealthy" qualifier for the obsession), and Jowan would be 18, if he appeared. At the end of the chapter, the year having passed, Anders would be 21, Solona would be 18 and out at Ostagar (Amell always struck me as very young for a Warden for some reason), and Jowan would be 19 and off to make trouble...


	7. Circumstance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take seven: taking advantage of circumstances. The longest damn chapter in the history of the universe. Also, references to a really amazing orgy (but no description thereof).

There are any number of rumors floating around Kinloch Hold, and Anders finds all of them distinctly uncomforting. The only thing that people can seem to agree on with any certainty is that Solona was recently Harrowed, Jowan was an accused blood mage – nearly impossible to believe – and that shortly before their disappearance, there was a Grey Warden in the tower. From here, the stories diverge. Some say that Jowan tried to run off with a girl – a maid, or his own best friend, or, most absurd of all, a Chantry sister. Others say that it was Solona who tried to run away, possibly to search for Anders – not comforting at all – and that it was Jowan who tried to aid her. There are many who believe that the Grey Warden took them both for the coming battle, and many others who believe that both are dead at the templars’ hands and never left the tower at all. If anyone knows the truth, it has been lost among the rumors. When Senior Enchanter Wynne returns, nearly a fortnight later, she comes with news of a massacre at Ostagar, and it seems certain that whoever went with the Grey Warden – if, in fact, anyone did – is certainly dead now.

“Well,” says Godwin, who seems bound and determined to talk Anders’ ear off whether or not he is the least bit interested in company, “one way or another, there is little we can do about it here.”

“I do wish,” Anders says, for what seems to be at least the third time that afternoon, “that you would find something constructive to do – elsewhere. I am not feeling at all sociable this evening, in case you’ve gone temporarily blind and stupid; leave me be.”

With a heavy sigh, Godwin plops down on a trunk, utterly ignoring Anders’ lack of hospitality. “Come now, we can’t all spend our lives coming up with absurd ways to run away; leave me some of my fun, at least.”

“Oh, absurd, of course,” Anders says, sarcasm dripping from every word. “I’m certain you could do ever so much better if you tried.”

Godwin smiles, and Anders notes a distinctly calculating gleam in his eyes. “Oh, certainly I could,” he says. “But you’ve never thought to ask _me_ for advice before.”

“Silly me,” Anders says with some disgust. “I never thought to solicit advice from someone too craven to sleep in full darkness.”

Godwin actually laughs. “Yes, I keep a candle burning, but one has little to do with the other; true, I have no desire to go – too much danger, not enough reward – but if I wanted to, I would bet you twenty sovereigns that I could walk out of here without a single person the wiser.”

Anders barks out a laugh despite himself. “Twenty sovereigns! What, are you secretly the crown prince of Nevarra and too shy to announce yourself? I’ve never seen such money in my life. I’m tempted to take you up on that bet, though I’m sure I wouldn’t know what to do with such a fortune, cooped up in here.”

Godwin shrugs. “You could spend it quickly enough out there, in that great wide world you seem so set on seeing. But then, you could always stay here; it’s all the same to me.”

“All right,” Anders says, “I’ll play. If, hypothetically, you were interested in escaping, how would you go about it?”

“Now there’s a sensible answer at last,” Godwin says with another sly smile. He reaches into his robes and withdraws a bag; it clinks into Anders’ hand, heavy with coin. “Gold doesn’t grow on trees, but I could use a hand, and you could use all the goodwill you can get, I think. I do believe we could help each other.”

***

Smuggling lyrium turns out to be so easy that it’s very nearly humorous. Far from impeding the operation, the templars who come across it either turn a blind eye entirely or clamor for a cut of their own. Godwin takes this in stride, directing his small empire of outside contacts with notes delivered by pigeons released from the small fourth floor window that Anders once tried to use as a means of escape. The shipments of lyrium come every few weeks, delivered wordlessly by Kester to a templar named Biff, who always takes the late watch at the dock on the prearranged nights and passes the precious cargo up to Godwin, having taken two vials as his own payment. From there, distribution is easy; they come at night, in ones and twos, as though they smell it. These men, who have terrorized Anders’ childhood and adolescence, look somehow smaller then, with hope and loathing battling in their gazes as they barter for the lyrium as though it were liquid gold. “They are like trained dogs,” Godwin says once, with a bit of a laugh. “They bark well enough, but they’d never bite me; they know full well that the trickle will die out without me here, and they can’t allow that to happen, now can they?” 

Anders does small, insignificant tasks for Godwin now and again – running interference with the Enchanters, who would likely disapprove if they suspected, taking an occasional turn selling the stock, feeding the pigeons who come back to the tower to roost. He knows that these are all things that Godwin could do himself, and so realizes that what his neighbor really wants from him must be something else entirely; he is therefore not terribly shocked when Godwin comes to him two months later and says, “I think you’ve moped long enough, don’t you? It’s a good time to get going; the nights are warm and the weather’s been fine, and if you hurry, you could be in Orzammar within a fortnight.”

“Orzammar?” Anders queries.

“Yes,” Godwyn says. “I’ve a man there by name of Rogek. He’s not responded to my last three notes, and I’m a bit concerned. If my next shipment is delayed…” he shrugs. “Well, it won’t be pretty. Those poor slobs may kill each other over what little I have left. So, you can go and suss out the problem for me. Unless, of course, you have something better to do?”

“No,” Anders admits.

“Well then,” Godwin says with a smile, “it’s settled. Get matters in Orzammar resolved, and we’ll consider your advance repaid. You can do anything you like after that – including looking for your friends, though I do really think you’d be wasting your time there.”

“It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea,” Anders says, “provided you tell me at last how it is you intend for me to leave here at all. They still watch me, you know, and there’s little I haven’t tried.”

Godwin waves his hand in front of his face absently. “Biff will arrange something,” he says, with a great deal of easy confidence.

***

The seventh time Anders leaves the tower, he is well-provisioned, well-rested, and dressed in his own clothing, with a staff slung over his shoulders and the bag of gold heavy in his pocket. “Someone will meet you,” Godwin says, and then Biff and another templar escort him to the door and even hold it open for him as he steps out into the night and toward the waiting ferry. “Good luck!” comes Godwin’s cheerful whisper. 

Anders steps onto the ferry and hears the door shut behind him. “Shall we?” asks Kester. The whole thing still feels too easy to be real, but Anders nods, and the ferryman pushes off into the lake. “A busy time in the tower, it seems,” says Kester. “First all those mages to Ostagar, then the Grey Warden and the girl, now you.”

“The girl?” Anders asks despite himself.

“Yes,” the ferryman replies, “a young, pretty thing – dark hair, saddest eyes you’ve ever seen. I was surprised to see her going off with him, but it takes all kinds, I suppose. They’re all dead now, they say. What is this world coming to?”

It is not much, but Anders finds himself cheered by the thought that at least half the rumors are wrong; though he still has no idea what has happened to Jowan, Solona left the tower alive.

The ferry docks, and Anders steps onto the shore of the lake. “I’ll take it from here,” comes a low female voice from the darkness. An elven woman in worn leather armor steps out of the shadows and offers her hand. “Namaya,” she says. “Godwin said to expect you.”

***

They never make it down into Orzammar. By the time they cross the foothills, avoiding darkspawn raiding parties as they can, they are informed that the dwarven kingdom is closed until further notice. Although Namaya tries first her considerable charms and then gold, the guards at the gate will not be swayed. “Perhaps they prefer pretty young men,” she says with a world-weary sigh as they retreat to the hodgepodge of stalls and tents that make up the surface camp. “You might give it a go.” 

Anders, who is enjoying these travails despite himself, shrugs gamely and says, “All right, but you’re not allowed to laugh at me.” He saunters up to the guards at the gate and gives them his very friendliest smile. “So, gentlemen,” he says. “You must be terribly bored just standing here, day after day…”

“Listen, blondie,” one of them interrupts, “let me save you a whole world of trouble. You’re even taller than that other one; do you _really_ think that will work?”

Anders slinks back to Namaya and says, “That may be the first time in my life someone has called me tall, you know. I don’t think it was a compliment, either.”

Namaya rolls her eyes and says, “Stupid stuck-up elitist bearded morons.”

Anders laughs. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“ _I_ think you’re tall,” Namaya says generously.

Anders grins at her. “That’s terribly sweet,” he says. “But though I’m having such a very grand time, I feel I have to ask: what now?”

“Now we write to Godwin, I suppose,” she says with another deep sigh. “And then we wait.”

***

They spend a week camping out, sharing blankets and body heat, and waiting. Godwin does not write back. They both try intermittently flirting with and threatening the various dwarves who come to guard the door, to no avail. Namaya tries to break in once, under cover of darkness; they spend the next two days limping down the mountain and licking the considerable wounds inflicted upon them by the guards, who have finally gotten entirely fed up with their efforts. 

They follow the Imperial Highway north to the coast through pouring rain. Two weeks from the foothills, they stop in a small fishing village where Godwin apparently has yet another contact, who, as it turns out, is an old, drunk templar who is just barely coherent enough to say that he hasn’t heard from Godwin in a month at least – and they’d best not be calling him a liar, or he’s quite sober enough to carve their tongues out of their mouths, thank you very much – which experience leaves Anders bemused and wet, and Namaya worried and wet.

Namaya suggests going back to Kinloch Hold, which idea Anders immediately rejects. “It’s all very well that they’re not supposed to be following me,” he says, “but I’d really rather not bait a sleeping tiger, as it were.”

Namaya snorts and points out, “If we don’t fix it, we don’t get paid.”

Anders wisely refrains from admitting that he’s already been paid for this particular favor – in advance. “As long as there’s a chance they can find me,” he says, “I’m not going anywhere near Calenhad, Godwin or no Godwin. He’s been running this operation for Maker knows how long without me, and he’ll keep right on doing it, I expect.”

Namaya narrows her eyes and studies him. “So,” she says slowly, “if they _can’t_ find you, all bets are off?”

“Hello,” Anders says, pointing to his staff, “mage? They can always find me, if they’re looking. There’s this nasty little invention known as a phylactery; perhaps you’ve heard of it? Biff might be a big teddy bear, but I assure you, not every templar is nearly so accommodating.”

“Fine,” Namaya says. “We make for Denerim instead; try to keep up.”

“Denerim?” Anders asks, confused.

“What, do you honestly think you’re the first mage Godwin has asked me to babysit?” Namaya asks. “You’re all worried about the same thing. I don’t like the detour, but I like you, I suppose; at least you don’t jump at shadows. If it’s the phylactery that worries you, we’ll just go get it.” He stares after her as she hikes her pack up to sit more comfortably on her shoulders and turns east. “Keep up!” she repeats.

***

Anders has never in his life imagined anything like the city of Denerim. He has not seen nearly as much of the world as he might have liked, but he’s spent a fair amount of time tramping through the Fereldan countryside, not only with Namaya but also with templars on his heels. He has been laboring under the delusion that he is a tough man to impress, but at his first glimpse of the Denerim Market District, he feels like a country bumpkin with his jaw on the ground. The people, the animals, the noise, the _smell_ – these things are very nearly overwhelming. 

Namaya takes it in stride, clearly unimpressed. With her hand around his wrist like a vice, she sets out into the chaos, dodging carts and dogs and children with practiced ease, Anders stumbling behind her, doing his very best to keep from falling flat on his face. Namaya leads them through increasingly filthy alleys until they come to a bridge. On the other side, the buildings are crammed even more closely together, and scrawny, barefoot children play in the shadow of a massive tree. A young man sitting on a tiny porch with a stick and a whittling knife looks up, grins and waves; his arms are skeletal. Namaya raises her hand to wave back, but her face does not betray even the hint of a smile.

“Friend of yours?” Anders ventures.

“Of a sort,” Namaya responds tersely. “Welcome to the Denerim Alienage – home sweet home.” They make their way across the square, and Anders tries not to stare. Almost everyone is grimy, with thin, hollow faces and subdued eyes. No one meets his gaze, though a few people halfheartedly greet his companion, whose tension continues to mount. “It just gets worse every time I come back,” she says through gritted teeth as they pass a broken window. A baby cries from somewhere inside the building, a high, hopeless wail going on and on; either no one comes to comfort it, or the child refuses to be comforted. “I owe Godwin – if for no other reason, then for getting me out of here.”

“It’s a big city,” Anders says carefully, watching her face. “Surely there’s an inexpensive inn in some other district –”

“You want to stay hidden, pretty boy?” she snaps. “Around here, you could lie dead in the middle of the street for a week before anyone noticed; there’s no place better for you while I take care of business.” She rounds on him, poking him in the chest with her finger, her eyes hot. “And before you make some asinine suggestion about coming with me, please recall that you can’t sneak up on a deaf sack of potatoes, let alone infiltrate a chantry warehouse without drawing attention to yourself. You stay, I go.”

He raises his hands in front of himself, palms out in a placating gesture. “I wouldn’t dream of arguing with anyone who carries at least seven pointy objects at any given time,” he says, trying for his usual levity in the face of her fury. He understands too well what it is like to feel helpless; she is not really angry at him.

Sure enough, her expression softens. “I don’t like it here,” she tells him by way of explanation. “Obviously.” She opens a door seemingly at random, but at least the small vestibule which is revealed is clean, and the man behind a rough-hewn counter looks moderately friendly.

“Back again?” he says, giving Namaya a curious look.

“I hope that’s not a complaint,” Namaya says. “I want my usual room.”

“Last room near the back stairs,” the man says with a nod, proffering a key. “Best view in the Alienage. Anything for my best customer.”

“Your only customer, you mean,” she mutters. She tosses a small bag of coin to the man, takes the key, then dumps her pack into Anders’ arms and places the key on top of it. “Straight up the stairs, last door on your left,” she says quietly. The innkeeper busies himself with the coins, making a show of not listening. “The window shows the street; there’s a back way out across the hall if you need it, but unless the Exalted Marches are bearing down on you, _stay put_.”

Anders shifts uncomfortably. “You’re going to a lot of trouble,” he says.

“I just want to get paid,” she tells him. “Get up there and stay out of my hair. I’ll be back when I’m back, and not a moment before.”

She turns and leaves the inn. The innkeeper gives Anders a look, and the mage hurries to the staircase and away from his scrutiny.

***

Anders tries to follow the instructions he was given, dozing briefly in the narrow, hard bed. When he wakes, it is dark. He sits up and looks out the window, but aside from a few windows illuminated with lamplight, the square is empty and still; other parts of Denerim doubtless have a bustling nightlife, but the people in the Alienage seem far too tired. 

Anders sighs and runs his hands through the tangle of his hair, then digs out a comb and attempts to ease the majority of the snarls out. There is a small basin of water on the single, rickety table, and he washes his face and hands until he has finally dislodged most of the dust and mud which has settled into his skin after weeks of travel through spring muck. He empties his pack, rearranges the contents, and fills it again. Looking out the window, half of the lights have been extinguished, and the square remains still. He wonders how long it takes to burgle a Chantry warehouse. He wonders what he’ll do if Namaya is caught, and never comes back. His stomach feels uncomfortably hollow, and the small room is causing a vague itch to appear between his shoulder blades; nice view or not, he doesn’t much like being boxed in.

Another hour passes before he gathers up the most essential of his things and heads for the back stairs. He locks the door behind him, though he doesn’t really think that will do any good around here. Still, it never hurts to be too careful; at the very least, having to pick a lock will slow down the almost inevitable theft of their packs. He creeps down the back stairs and out into the chilly night. He gets lost a few times in the winding alleys of the Alienage, but he does finally locate the bridge. Even if there were someplace open and selling food, his sense of self-preservation is keen enough to realize that flashing gold in this type of neighborhood is likelier than not to get him mugged, and he has a notion that being human might make him that much more attractive as a target for potential footpads; while he isn’t defenseless, he’d also really rather not fight for his life on an empty stomach.

On the other side of the bridge, there are more lights, and more people milling about. At first, he is wary, but no one seems to be paying attention to anyone else, and he supposes that this is what is meant by the anonymity of a crowd. As he raises his head and does his very best impression of someone who knows exactly where he is going, he considers that he might not mind living in a city once this little sojourn is over.

In the marketplace, there are posters of various sorts plastered across the stone walls. He reads them as he passes – one is advertising a new farce at a theater in the noble quarter, another touts the variety of wares available at a local shop, a third invites players for a tournament of some sort of game, though he hasn’t the slightest idea what the men with the balls and mallets are doing in the accompanying illustration. On the fourth poster, he sees a familiar face; he stops, metaphorically rooted to the spot, and nearly gets trampled by a contingent of armed guards marching across the marketplace. He ends up on his ass in the mud, looking up at the poster on the wall with an utterly confounded look on his face. Solona stares back at him from the poster with a wicked snarl and wild eyes. Still, even with the uncharacteristic expression and choppy, short hair, there is no way he could possibly mistake her for anyone else. Next to her, a similarly snarling young man is depicted, and the bounty listed on the bottom of the poster makes Anders’ eyes nearly pop out of his head.

He is so confounded as he gets back to his feet that he grabs the arm of the next passerby before he even realizes she is a Chantry sister; the woman sneers at his muddy appearance, but even that does not deter him from asking, “These people, there. What in Andraste’s name have they _done_?”

The sister tugs her sleeve free of his grasp and brushes at it. “Honestly, young man,” she says. “Have you been living in a cave?”

“When I can find one,” Anders says vaguely; the sister’s expression softens.

“Many have been driven from their homes by this war,” she says with a small shake of the head. “Have faith in the Maker; he will carry you through this.”

“But these criminals,” Anders says again, utterly disinterested in her platitudes and her Maker.

“You are indeed behind on the news,” the sister replies. “The Wardens are charged with killing the king.”

***

The evening is a blur after that. Anders finds a tavern. He eats until he no longer feels hollow, then drinks until he nearly brings up everything he has eaten. He joins a rowdy crowd of young people, drinks and eats something else, sings a number of wildly inappropriate songs, and eventually gets swept along when they settle their tab and head outside. There is another establishment after that, with muted lights, softly scented lamp oil, and more wine served by smiling men and women in skimpy silk and satin garments. He ends up with his head resting in the lap of a particularly lovely woman with dusky skin, eyes the color of gold coins, and sure, strong hands. In his drunken state, he proclaims her to be the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, though honesty compels him to add, “Not that I have met many women. But I intend to make up for lost time.” 

“A handsome fellow such as yourself?” she asks with a laugh. “I can’t believe it. What’s your story, sweet thing?”

He is in a strange, dreamlike state, induced by too much wine, too much music, and perhaps too much worry. “I’m a mage,” he tells her, waving his fingers lazily just under her chin, letting them spark with power. “And my best friend in the world has recently killed the king, I’m told.”

“You’re quite drunk, aren’t you?” she asks.

“Oh yes,” he says. “The last time I escaped, I swore I wouldn’t drink again. But I’m not very good at keeping promises.” He gives her his most charming smile, though it is likely it comes out lopsided.

“Lucky you. No one here asks for promises,” she says lightly.

“Lucky me,” he agrees genially.

“Say,” she drawls, “that glowing finger trick. I’ll bet we could find a use for that.”

***

He wakes up naked in a pile of bodies – he counts them, and is equal parts disturbed and impressed to find five people can even fit into one bed – without his purse and with a raging hangover. He extricates himself and spends some time searching for his robes before he finds them hanging off of one of the bedposts. They’re torn, but they’re all he’s got, so he pulls them on and stumbles out into the common room, where he collapses at the bar and pillows his head in his hands. 

He is still sitting there, contemplating whether it might not be easier to just die and get it over with, when there is a loud clanking at the door and an imperious voice proclaims, “There have been reports of an apostate mage in your establishment, Sanga.” Suddenly, his will to live is rekindled.

He tries to be as inconspicuous as possible as he looks up. Unfortunately, the common room is mostly empty; he’s one of two patrons at the bar, in plain sight of the three templars at the door. The woman behind the counter gives him a look and a nearly imperceptible nod in the direction of the hallway. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says airily. Then she turns to Anders and says, “Go on, boy, you’ve loafed long enough; get to earning your keep.”

Anders stands, trying not to wobble. “I’ll get right on that,” he mumbles; he has no idea why she’s helping him, but he supposes it’s the least she can do after he dropped twenty gold sovereigns in her establishment. It’s either that, or whatever he did last night managed to impress even her, which makes him really wish he remembered it.

“Who’s he?” the lead templar says, narrowing his eyes. “I haven’t seen him before.”

“And you’ve seen all of my employees, have you?” the innkeeper asks with a perfectly arched brow. “My, I’m sure the Chantry would be interested in hearing about _that_.”

Anders knows fortune when he sees it, so despite his fuzzy vision and roiling stomach, he makes it from the bar into the hallway in record time, then keeps right on going until he spots a window. Climbing over the sill, he drops onto his knees and promptly vomits. Fortunately, after that, his head clears somewhat; with a groan, he stumbles to his feet and picks a direction. He doesn’t know where he is, but it seems this particular adventure is over.

***

He leaves Denerim that day. Although he finds the Alienage and its tiny inn eventually, the door to the room is standing open and both packs are missing. At that point, he can only assume that Namaya left him or else will be so furious with him abandoning the room that he’s really better off staying out of her way. In the Alienage, he sticks out like a sore thumb; in the human part of the city, the templars and city guard seem to be everywhere. It seems a better idea all around to brave the wilderness. 

On the outskirts of the city, he narrowly avoids running into a regiment of soldiers; instead, he stumbles upon a nest of darkspawn, nearly dies fighting one of them, and runs like he’s never run before in his life.

As it turns out, this sets the pace for the next several weeks of his life. He runs, avoids soldiers, tries to avoid darkspawn, fights a few of both if he can’t get around them. When the darkspawn become more common than the soldiers, he makes for the Wilds, where he spends a few months with a small tribe of Chasind folk, healing their sick and weaving baskets out of swamp rushes, as though there is still a market for such things when all of Ferelden seems to be falling down around them. The tribe moves around, avoiding the darkspawn horde. There are no soldiers or templars to avoid in the Wilds, at least – not since Ostagar. Only wolves and genlocks seem willing to brave the muck, and Anders can’t entirely blame everyone else for staying away; the Wilds are completely miserable.

Then, abruptly, it all stops. The darkspawn raiding parties stop coming. When Anders ventures out to the nearest human settlement, he discovers people rebuilding charred and broken structures, abuzz with tales of some Hero who has saved the country and possibly the world with a display of martial prowess worthy of a bard’s tale.

The Blight is over.

***

When at last Anders returns to Denerim, it is with some halfhearted idea of melting the lock on the Chantry warehouse door – assuming he can find it – or else finding someone willing to take care of matters for him. He stops in the Market District to watch workers busily erecting some sort of statue – he can’t tell what it is under its tarp, but it’s certainly huge, if nothing else – and doesn’t even notice someone coming up behind him until a hand settles on his shoulder and a low voice says flatly, “So, I see you’re not dead.” 

“Namaya!” Maybe it’s the months he’s spent running, but he’s so thrilled to see a familiar face that he lifts her up and swings her around with a whoop. Maybe she’s been running just as long, because she lets him. “I didn’t think I’d see _you_ again,” he admits. “I worried.”

“Did you, really?” she says. “Not enough to stay put, apparently.”

“There were templars,” he says. That much, even she will understand.

“In the Alienage?” she asks with a dubious look.

“Yes,” he lies.

Namaya crosses her arms. “And here I thought you were at the Pearl, electrifying the other customers.”

Anders wants to say, _Oh dear, you heard about that?_ but instead manages a perfectly impassive expression. “No,” he insists. “I was running from templars.”

As if to back him up, a small group of templars come around the workmen erecting the statue; it is startling when Anders recognizes yet another familiar face. He tries to duck his head, but it’s already too late. “Hey, I know you!” the templar in the back of the group bellows.

“Shit,” Anders says, then, “see? They just won’t leave me alone.” The templars begin pushing through the crowd towards them. “ _Run,_ ” Anders suggests, then takes his own advice.

***

“You,” Namaya says, trying to catch her breath as she crouches behind a pile of refuse in an alleyway, “are nothing but trouble. Why did _I_ have to run?”

“If you really wanted to trust yourself to Biff’s tender mercies, by all means, you could have stayed,” Anders hisses. “He saw you talking to me, and he doesn’t seem willing to turn a blind eye on me a second time.”

“ _I’m_ no apostate,” Namaya says. “Not to mention, Godwin’s back, no thanks to you. I’ve got work to do, you know, even if he’s entirely written you off.”

Anders sighs forlornly. “I hate this city. Whatever happened to the anonymity of being in a crowd? I’ll never get that phylactery now.”

“It’s not here, anyway,” Namaya tells him. “That’s what I came back to tell you back when you took off on me. Because of the war, they moved all of them out of Denerim. They might be in Highever, or maybe Amaranthine.”

Anders groans. “With my luck, I’ll be arrested five times between here and Highever.”

Namaya offers him a very unsympathetic, “Then you’d better get going.”

***

His phylactery is not in Highever. He does not get arrested five times, but once is enough; two days outside of Amaranthine, a group of templars stage an ambush, and before he knows it, he’s in irons. “You know,” he says to Biff, “I thought you and I had an understanding.” 

“Not my problem if you’re too stupid to stay gone,” Biff mutters under his breath. “Rylock’s driven us half crazy looking for you.”

“Haven’t you had something _better_ to do recently than chase me around?” Anders says. “Wasn’t there a war?”

“Don’t ask me,” Biff says. “Women aren’t exactly rational creatures, and that one least of all. But she’s got rank, and I follow orders.”

“She just can’t forget me,” Anders laments. “It’s such a burden.”

“Biff, stop chatting him up; this isn’t a bloody tea party,” one of the other templars grumbles. “Gag him and let’s get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my word, where to start. Okay, well.
> 
> Godwin is the mage in the closet. The reach of his network is only conjecture, but it made for a good story. His disappearance mid-chapter is linked to Uldred's rebellion; it's hard to be a drug dealer when you're hiding in a closet.
> 
> Biff is, of course, Biff the Gurgler, aka the dead templar next to Anders when you meet him in Awakening.
> 
> Namaya is the elven woman you meet in Awakening who seems to have been involved in looking for Anders' phylactery previously. She got a looooooot of action in this chapter, and I have a whole backstory for her, so by all means, if you're interested, just ask - if I wrote any more about her, I'd have gone completely off track.
> 
> The woman who picks Anders up in the brothel is Isabela. The madam at the Pearl is the lovely Mistress Sanga, who seems unruffled by anything ever. That should take care of the cameos, more or less.
> 
> One quick epilogue-type chapter to wrap this up - this was just becoming absurdly long, and my eyeballs were starting to bleed.
> 
> In this chapter, Anders goes from 21 to 22, Solona goes from 18 to 19, and Jowan would go from 19 to 20, but it's a tossup whether he survived the mess at Redcliffe (I'll leave that to your Warden's discretion).


	8. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue of sorts to tie up loose ends. A reunion under peculiar circumstances.

Anders has escaped templar custody in all manner of ways over the years, and though a few of his ideas have been fairly outlandish, even he is surprised when he’s rescued from his bondage by darkspawn. One minute, Biff and Warren are arguing with the Grey Warden Seneschal, demanding asylum – and an underground cell for Anders, naturally – and the next, darkspawn are pouring through the door, the Seneschal is shouting, and the templars are drawing their swords.

In the ensuing scuffle, someone snaps the chain on his manacles; after that, Anders is throwing spells left and right, just trying to keep the darkspawn off of him. He tries to get outside, but every corner he turns, more darkspawn appear. Eventually, he has to go up instead, looking for defensible ground, more focused on survival than on getting out. Surely, the onslaught has to end sometime.

What seems like hours – but may in fact be minutes – later, he ends up back to back with Biff, surrounded by a circle of darkspawn.

“For the record,” Anders says, “I could think of fifteen better ways to die.”

Biff grunts behind him. “So keep them off of us, mage, and stay alive.”

Anders lobs a fireball at a few of the darkspawn, and they back away, temporarily deterred. “You know, if you had just left me alone, none of us would be here.”

“You know, if you’d shut up, you’d do a better job of keeping us both alive.”

The darkspawn charge.

There is chaos for the next few minutes – spells are flying, Anders is lashing out with his staff, Biff is swinging his sword, and for a moment it seems like they’ll make it out. Then a fountain of flame envelops the templar, and Anders yowls and jumps back. He raises his hands to cast a healing spell, but he can see that it's far too late. Biff gurgles and falls to the floor; Anders direct his power at the darkspawn behind the templar’s corpse instead. The monster falls, and silence with it; Anders shakes his hands, disgusted, and turns, only to realize that he is no longer alone in the room.

There are two women in armor standing at the door. At first, this is surprising enough; then one of the women lifts the visor of her helmet, and he thinks his eyes must be at least as wide as hers when they recognize each other. For a brief moment, he swears that he forgets to breathe; as unlikely as it is that he has been rescued from templars by darkspawn – in a Grey Warden outpost, no less – it seems too fantastic to believe that she is here. There are about a dozen things he wants to say, but he doesn’t know where to begin, and she seems shocked into silence. The other woman is glaring at him, and his mind is completely, helplessly blank.

“Er,” he says, at a loss for words entirely, “I didn’t do it.” Solona keeps staring at him, and somehow, inanely, he can’t stop himself from continuing to babble. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not broken up about them dying, to be perfectly honest. Biff there made the funniest gurgle when he went down.”

Silence greets this proclamation. Solona clears her throat. “So,” she says, then trails off. The other woman looks between them, but they both ignore her. “You… killed these darkspawn yourself?”

It is, Anders reflects, no more inane than his greeting. “Of course,” he says. Solona stares at him, and he amends, “Well, they helped. A little. Before they tragically died.” He feels a foolish grin spreading across his face. He can’t see her lips under the helmet, but he can tell she’s grinning too. Any minute, he thinks, any minute now, she’ll tell him, _you never change,_ and he’ll tell her, _you’ve changed enough for both of us,_ and then, somehow, everything will be just like it always was, only better.

The other woman clears her throat pointedly, continuing to glare at him with extreme suspicion, and Anders fights down the urge to laugh. Whatever happens next, he senses he is unlikely to be bored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY WORD, IT IS FINALLY DONE. Okay, I seriously don't have anything else to say; I'll just sit there panting in a corner, feeling like I've just run a marathon.
> 
> To anyone who has made it this far: thank you.


End file.
